On this episode of People Fundamentals, I’m joined by Dorothy Dalton, founder of 3Plus International, a global expert in gender balance, diversity, and workplace inclusion. Recently, Dorothy has turned her attention to a topic many workplaces overlook: trauma in the workplace. Together, we explore the different forms of trauma employees face, the systemic issues that perpetuate them, and how organizations can create more trauma-informed, empathetic environments.
Trauma in the workplace is far more common than you might think. It often stems from systemic inequities, broken trust, and unaddressed stressors. Addressing workplace trauma demands an organizational culture shift. “People need to be trauma-aware because I don’t think currently that most people are,” Dorothy says.
But HR leaders are so busy putting out fires that the impact of work on people’s wellbeing can easily get lost in the shuffle. Becoming trauma-aware can shift the tide. “What it means is to just have an understanding of the impact that a lot of these experiences have on their employees,” Dorothy says.
In this conversation, recorded live at UNLEASH World 2024 in Paris, Dorothy shares her insights into addressing workplace trauma, promoting psychological safety, and building trust through empathy and inclusion.
Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube Music
Learn to spot trauma triggers at work
Being aware of how trauma manifests can help you spot the triggers in your organization. Dorothy outlines three significant categories of workplace trauma that often go unnoticed but have a profound impact on employees. The first, systemic trauma, arises from external biases — such as sexism, ageism, or ableism — that carry over into the workplace and are compounded by organizational practices. “They experience trauma outside and they bring it into the workplace and then it’s compounded in the workplace,” Dorothy says.
Relationship trauma is another critical area. Dorothy shares a real-life example of an employee who felt betrayed by her manager when a position she felt she was being primed for was given to an external hire. Lastly, she discusses sanctuary trauma, where employees trust their organization to protect them but are let down by inadequate systems. “There is some issue where they make a confidential report and the system either ignores them or turns it on them,” Dorothy says, as an example.
Measure the impact of trauma
Workplace trauma leaves lasting scars on employees, affecting their mental health, engagement, and ability to perform at their best. “Some people become very aggressive and vigilant, other people shrink into themselves,” Dorothy says. “So everyone reacts differently.” These responses not only diminish individual well-being but also ripple through teams, impacting collaboration and overall productivity.
Dorothy shares the story of a woman who had been laid off four times via internet-based methods like Zoom, leaving her in a constant state of anxiety in her new workplace. Fearful of being fired again, she became hesitant to take risks, speak up, or fully engage, illustrating the lingering impact of workplace trauma. This example highlights how past experiences can shape an employee’s confidence and ability to thrive in future roles.
Recognizing and addressing these effects is essential for building a healthier, more resilient workforce — which is why Dorothy calls for a trauma-informed approach. You can use tools like AI and engagement surveys to identify teams struggling with high absenteeism, turnover, or conflict, which Dorothy describes as “litmus tests of trauma.”
Close the gaps between values and actions
A recurring theme in Dorothy’s work is the disconnect between what organizations say and what they do. Many companies claim to value inclusivity, for example, but don’t reinforce that value through actions. “Leaders know where the toxic elements are,” she says, “and they tend to be high-performing and result-driven… . A lot of these leaders are being allowed to get away with things because they produce results.” This creates an unsafe environment where employees fear speaking up.
Dorothy advocates for fostering speak-up cultures, where team charters establish clear behavioral expectations and hold everyone accountable. She also challenges business leaders to rethink their value statements, removing outdated phrases like “go the extra mile” and replacing them with language that reflects empathy, inclusion, and balance.
Dorothy’s insights offer a powerful reminder that addressing workplace trauma isn’t just about resolving individual cases — it’s about building systems and cultures that prevent harm and support resilience. By recognizing systemic issues, prioritizing trauma awareness, and bridging the gap between values and actions, you can create a workplace where everyone feels safe, valued, and empowered to thrive.
People in This Episode
Dorothy Dalton: LinkedIn
Transcript
Dorothy Dalton:
I think it’s just starting to come out that people need to be trauma-aware because I don’t think, currently, that most people are. And what HR people are doing, they’re firefighting, they’re trying to get a seat at the table, they’re trying to be part of the business. They may or they may not want to do things as humanely as possible. Not all HR people do. So I think it would be great if they could do that. But I think what it means is to just have an understanding of the impact that a lot of these experiences have on their employees.
Ashley Litzenberger:
Hi, and welcome to Betterworks’ People Fundamentals podcast. I’m your host, Ashley Litzenberger, Senior Director of Product Marketing. Betterworks’ core belief in People Fundamentals revolves around helping HR lead through constant change by focusing on core values like fairness, support, balance, and enabling growth opportunities for employees. These tenants empower everyone in the workforce to strive for excellence, to foster creativity, and to acknowledge each other’s contributions. Betterworks believes that strategic HR leaders can translate these principles into action, shaping their workforce for the better and helping drive meaningful business outcomes. And in this show, we’re diving even deeper into these principles by listening to experts share how you can make them come alive at your organization.
On today’s episode, recorded live at UNLEASH World 2024, I’m joined by Dorothy Dalton, the founder of 3Plus International. Dorothy is a champion for gender balance and diversity in the workplace, and lately, she’s been focusing on something just as important: trauma in the workplace. It’s a topic more organizations need to explore as we navigate the challenges of the post-pandemic world and as HR organizations move to support employees more holistically.
In our conversation, Dorothy breaks down the different types of workplace trauma from systemic issues like bias to relational challenges like betrayal by colleagues or leaders. She also shares how HR and managers can build trauma-informed practices to foster environments where people feel supported and valued. So join us for a timely discussion with plenty of practical takeaways for building more empathetic and inclusive organizations.
Hi, Dorothy.
Dorothy Dalton:
Hi, Ashley. I’m really happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Ashley Litzenberger:
Yes. Well, one of the things that caught my attention was that you have this very long history in DE&I and gender inequality, and you look at it very intentionally in a European context and what’s happening. But you’ve recently started to do additional work and focus on trauma in the workplace. And I’m curious, tell me a little bit about what prompted you to make that transition and what prompted you to dive into this new topic.
Dorothy Dalton:
Okay. Well, there are a couple of things to unpick there. The first thing is that I didn’t move into DE&I, I was in it, it came to me. And so back in the day it was called discrimination, exclusion, and intimidation. So it’s always been around bullying, harassment, and exclusion. And workplace trauma is just a part of that. And it’s getting recognition for all the behaviors that we’ve normalized in the workplace that can be challenging and even traumatic for different types of people.
Ashley Litzenberger:
Very interesting. And so as you started working on DE&I initiatives, moving from discrimination, trying to create more of an inclusive and positive approach to creating systemic ways to create a more equitable and warm environment for everyone to present their full selves or bring their full selves to work, what started to show up from a trauma perspective? Where did those things start coming in? And how is that affecting the workplace today?
Dorothy Dalton:
Okay. Well, what I’ll do is dial back a bit and define trauma. So people quite often think of trauma as some massive external event like a school shooting, an industrial accident or a catastrophe of some sort, which causes PTSD. And quite often you might see that with trauma-facing occupations like healthcare workers, first responders, military, some journalists, for example-
Ashley Litzenberger:
Social workers often fall into this.
Dorothy Dalton:
Exactly. But then you have more complex trauma. I’m not a fan of using disorder, I prefer post-traumatic stress injury. And we see that with repetitive behaviors in the workplace that are damaging to different individuals. Now, I like data and one of the things that has come out recently is the WHO say that 70% of people globally have experienced some sort of trauma in their lives. And for most of us, it will be part of life’s rich tapestry. It could be the death of a loved one, a divorce, losing a parent, something like that. We all have those and most of us take those in our stride.
For others, they can leave a lingering scar. And quite often the traumas that we find in our workplace build up on that. And for example, in the EU, research shows that 50% of people cite the workplace as the major cause of their stress. In the States, there has been a massive spike in PTSD post-pandemic by 120%, 36% last year. So one of the things I’ve noticed is that… Well, I’ve been a coach for 30 years, and I’m seeing a fragility with people increasing, and I think that’s reflected post-COVID. I think we still haven’t understood correctly the long-term effects of that period. That was a very dystopian period, wasn’t it, in lockdown?
Ashley Litzenberger:
Are there different types of workplace traumas? Are there different categories or different buckets that you can place different experiences into?
Dorothy Dalton:
Well, I think there are lots of incidents where people can be traumatized in the workplace, but I’ll just talk about three that are quite significant. The first one is systemic trauma. And these are people who might be experiencing a lot of the problems that they have in wider culture. So ageism, sexism, ableism, people who are neurodiverse, all of these people, LGBTQ, they experience trauma outside and they bring it into the workplace and then it’s compounded in the workplace.
The second thing, and people don’t often think about this in relation to the workplace, is relationship trauma. And it’s when people are betrayed by a boss or a colleague. And I’ll give you a for instance, and this is a true story, of someone I was working with who was due to make a presentation to the board about their vision for her role in a new position, a senior position. And she learned from her boss that same day that they were bringing in an outsider, completely unqualified, that she would have to train for a year and she would have to report to that person. So that was a trauma, she felt acutely betrayed by her boss. So that was one.
And the final thing is sanctuary trauma. And actually, this is something for HR people to think about and it’s a term that’s being used in relation to the military, social services, education, but it’s in the workplace. It’s about when you trust a system to take care of you — and workplaces have a duty of care to provide psychological safety for their employees, but they quite often don’t. And this is when they trust a system and the system lets them down, and it might be reporting harassment, it might be a compliance issue. There is some issue where they make a confidential report and the system either ignores them or turns it on them and makes them the victim. So they’re the main ones.
Ashley Litzenberger:
And then there’s issues of retaliation or discrimination issues-
Dorothy Dalton:
Exactly, yeah.
Ashley Litzenberger:
… in the workforce as well. And as I’ve been thinking about this on the applicant talent recruiting side as well, there’s been a lot of pushback among job applicants around what are the different expectations of me through the application process? How much work am I doing for your project? What is the project? Is it related to your company? Is it something different? And you see a lot of reaction in the news around this idea that applicants are doing free work in projects that are then getting deployed by companies even if that person isn’t getting hired. And so you’ll see a marketing person’s strategy or a design person’s template showing up even though they didn’t get the job and they did the labor for free.
And that is an example of trauma that’s experienced not in one particular workplace, but through the work experience across different companies and different vendors. And that’s why it’s so important to think about what are your policies and how are they affecting the individual who’s not just staying at your company, but based on what their lifelong career experience is going to be and going to look like.
Dorothy Dalton:
And I think the way this manifests itself, for example, there is unemployment bias. So people treat people who have career gaps, long-term unemployment, that for many can be traumatic. People who are constantly in the job search loop that you’ve just talked about, that can eventually become traumatic for people if they get rejection after rejection.
Ashley Litzenberger:
Absolutely. And it’s interesting because due to the focus of what we do at Betterworks and because of our audience and our listeners, I end up interacting with a lot of HR-related individuals on LinkedIn and the number of HR professionals who will start out a layoff post saying, “I was embarrassed to post this, but I want to and it’s important and I need help and I need support and I’m reaching out to my network.” It made me wonder how much we really are talking through both sides of our mouth saying layoffs really are normal, they happen to everybody, we don’t want to make it a big deal because so many companies are doing them. But yet we still carry a stigma around being laid off or having that gap in our resume or choosing to take time out because we were burned out or we did have to heal or we needed to take a step back for our mental health or for our family or for whatever other reason.
Dorothy Dalton:
And I think there was research that came out from Totaljobs just a couple of weeks ago in the UK that I think it was 50% of recruiters in the UK think that 57 is too old to work. So 57 is too old to work, but too young to retire. So what does that say to somebody? So it would be someone who’s early Gen X. So what does the future hold for me? I’ve just been laid off and yet you’ve got these people just saying, I’m too old. So I think we have to be really careful about our messaging, the things we say in public and the way we treat people on a daily basis.
Ashley Litzenberger:
Yeah. I also think there’s a mindset shift that we’re still working on. I saw a slide earlier today that talked about the different stages- like the different ages. There’s the age of agriculture, the industrial revolution, the age of information. We’re now in the age of AI. One of the things that we’re seeing right now is people’s careers are so different than they were 50 or 70 years ago and yet we still have that archaic, that old mindset that someone comes into a company, stays there for a long time, gets a pension, retires, and actually has a much shorter lifespan than what we live today.
Dorothy Dalton:
Yeah. Exactly.
Ashley Litzenberger:
And we’re talking to young folks about how you in your 20s will have five different careers across different industries and different jobs, but the truth is that’s happening now and it’s happening to everybody of any age in any decade. If you’re 57, you might be retiring from one job or leaving one job, but starting something else, opening up into something different, leaving your corporate job to become a consultant. Or moving from a 9:00 to 5:00 job that had really good benefits and now that you’re more financially independent or stable, you’re deciding to go into your passion project and becoming a full-time artist, or you’re shifting over and wanting to become a career coach. There are so many people with so many skills that are available to offer. And when you start to box people into specific ages or characteristics, then you’re going to miss out.
Dorothy Dalton:
I agree. No, I think it’s really important that we get out of a linear mindset. But I mean that’s a problem for people to start thinking differently. And that is the main resistance to change is because, I forget who said this, I think it was Gloria Steinem, “It’s not about what we have to learn, it’s what we have to unlearn.” And we have to do a lot of unlearning.
Ashley Litzenberger:
It’s really interesting because we’re able to look back in developments in psychology and there’s been a lot of strides in acknowledging and understanding childhood trauma, adolescent trauma that you incur in the first two decades of your life and how it impacts you later on. But once you move into adulthood, you spend five or six decades in the workforce and you’re working with the same people day in and day out, year over year or in similar roles. And so the idea that you could accrue complex trauma that’s just a little bit every day consistently and that is going to affect you as an adult and it’s going to build up over time is perfectly reasonable, but not something that I see in newspapers. So is this a new area of study? Where’s the focus coming from?
Dorothy Dalton:
I think it’s just starting, which is why this year I certified as a trauma-informed coach. And I think, for example, what we’re seeing in systemic trauma. So sexism, racism, ageism, if you are neurodiverse or disabled and you have these experiences outside the workplace and you also experience them inside the workplace.
And the other thing is about unreasonable demands. So trauma is caused and has different responses. So people, it’s on the, I would say, the stress management set. So freeze, fight or flight, and we all react differently. So some people become very aggressive and vigilant, other people shrink into themselves. So everyone reacts differently. And I’ll just give you a couple of for instances. So real life situations. You’ve read about Zoom firings, hundreds of people fired by Zoom. I spoke to a woman who had been laid off four times by internet. And so she goes into her new workplace and she’s on edge all of the time. She’s scared to take risks, she’s scared to do things, to put her hand up to say anything because she’s afraid she’ll get laid off again. So that is a complex trauma.
Ashley Litzenberger:
That is a very good example of what workplace trauma would look like. I’m curious, as you mentioned that you’ve been certified in becoming a trauma-informed coach. That’s something that I see in different professions, in therapy or in psychology, in coaching. What does it mean to become certified in a trauma-informed approach to anything? And should HR leaders or HR practitioners start thinking about the trauma-informed certifications for their HRBPs or any other individuals on their teams?
Dorothy Dalton:
I think it’s just starting to come out that people need to be trauma-aware because I don’t think currently that most people are. And what HR people are doing, they’re firefighting, they’re trying to get a seat at the table, they’re trying to be part of the business. They may or they may not want to do things as humanely as possible. Not all HR people do. So I think it would be great if they could do that. But I think what it means is to just have an understanding of the impact that a lot of these experiences have on their employees. So unreasonable demands, 24/7 availability, people not taking vacations, people working 40, 50 hours a week, or even more. I spoke to someone who was working 70, 80 hours a week.
So I think all of these things we’ve loosely called it and put it in a burnout box, but oftentimes it’s more than just burnout. There is a reason for burnout. Because some people work long hours, but they don’t get burnt out. So it’s more than that. And you’ve not just got the harassment, you’ve got the incivility. There was a survey on LinkedIn that said that 60% of responders saw an increase of workplace incivility. So it’s the way people talk to each other, there’s lack of recognition, lack of gratitude, lack of appreciation. So all of these things contribute where people feel helpless, unappreciated and it gets on top of them.
Ashley Litzenberger:
One of the things that’s challenging as we think about taking a trauma-informed approach or looking at trauma in the workplace is that it’s not a binary or a logical question about did something cause trauma or didn’t it cause trauma? Because each individual is different in their past experiences and their personality and how they’re going to respond to the current environment are going to be extremely different and very individual by individual. So what happens to move someone from being stressed but functional into having more of a traumatic experience or having a more lasting impact of whatever it is that’s happening in the workplace?
Dorothy Dalton:
Well, I think you nailed it when you said everybody has a different approach and that’s why everybody has to be treated differently, which is hard for managers, obviously, hard for HR. But what tends to happen is that people tend to be on a bell curve in terms of their performance. So a certain amount of pressure and stress can be good. So the adrenaline kicks in, they reach optimal performance, and then for some it goes down.
And what HR people can do is they can use AI because we’re at an AI conference, they can check into that. They can do employee engagement surveys. They can check the teams where they might have high level of absenteeism. They can check the teams where the hours are long. They can also check if they have high levels of turnover or high levels of conflict.
So all of these things are, if you like litmus tests, of the trauma level in any organization, and not everyone on that team will be experiencing trauma. Some people thrive when other people don’t. So it requires a much more humane and individual response, which is very hard for managers and HR people who are usually overwhelmed.
Ashley Litzenberger:
I can absolutely imagine that. And you’re right, because even if I think back to my own experience, I would never want to go into sales because I know what those timelines look like because of my colleagues who are in sales, who I do support. And some people thrive in the competition, having a leaderboard, wanting to make it to the top of the leaderboard, having that pressure to close a deal by the end of the quarter. Whereas for me, that pressure is just incredibly stressful. And I prefer to be on a different side where my stresses are more around quality and more around more subtle nuances around what are we creating? How are we innovating? How am I partnering and how am I supporting someone else? And I like being on that other side. And so some of it is figuring out and having the luxury to figure out and then being able to choose roles that are better suited for your personality and better suited for your body systems and how they work.
Dorothy Dalton:
There are two things there. I mean, first of all, our organizations tend to be based on those type of what I would call “alpha values” of got to win, got to get shareholder value, got to get bonuses, all of these things. It’s, go, compete, you’ve got to be the best. I’ve worked with organizations taking things out of their value statements of “go the extra mile,” for example. What does that mean? I mean, so for you and me, what does go the extra mile? I’m going the extra mile. I stay till 5:30, that is my extra mile. So it’s about having the empathy and the emotional intelligence to decide what is needed for each person.
But there’s also a systemic element. Because even though you’re not in that alpha push, push, push, win, win win, you could still bring value to your salespeople doing a more nurturing type of relationship management. So it’s about incorporating different skills, different personalities, and getting a better team output.
Ashley Litzenberger:
Yeah. And I think you make a really interesting point about company culture wanting to focus on those people who are thriving in a highly stressful situation and maybe not making healthy personal decisions in work-life balance, but they’re able to do it and they’re engaged and they’re thriving.
But this idea that the employees that are often recognized, they come with sentences of, “This person went above and beyond, this person is doing extra.” I worked at a company once and we were talking about an account manager who won the quarterly All Hands Award for the exemplary employee. And they were saying, “This person is amazing. They have accounts in so many different time zones. They start working at 6:00 AM and then their last meeting is usually at 11:00 PM.” And I remember listening and thinking, is that actually something we want to celebrate, that this person has lost their chance to do anything besides work for the entire day?
Dorothy Dalton:
Do they have a family? Do they have relationships? Do they look after themselves? So maybe that person for a period, it works for them, but I feel sure that eventually they will burn out.
Ashley Litzenberger:
And then the question becomes, how does that wrap back into company culture if that’s what we’re saying a successful employee looks like? What message is that sending to other employees? And so I’m curious about the work that you were just talking about to take things like going the extra mile or going above and beyond or stretching beyond what you can do that are in company value statements. Tell me a little bit more about where that came from and why it’s so important to take a look at your company values and what you might replace that with.
Dorothy Dalton:
Okay. Well, there are three things there. I mean, I think businesses have been traditionally male-dominated, business run by men for men. And that was at the time when men went to work, women stayed at home and raised the kids or had a second type of job, which wasn’t the main revenue generator. Those days are gone, right? So what’s happening is that workplaces aren’t changing fast enough. So they are trying to change, so they’re changing their value statements. So they’re taking out go the extra mile, go above and beyond. They’re trying to be more inclusive and treat people differently and accept them so that they can bring their whole selves to work, all that good stuff.
But then, and this is what came out in the session that I ran yesterday with a group of HR leaders, what we’re seeing is a behavior gap, so a gap between the value statements and what’s actually happening.
And the common thread in the discussion was that HR people know and leaders know where the toxic elements are and they tend to be high-performing and result-driven with the best results. So basically, a lot of these leaders are being allowed to get away with things because they produce results. And then people are afraid to speak up because when they do, they’re afraid that they will be penalized. So you’ve got the two things there. You’ve got the psychosocial safety, which is all the things around work-life balance and then you’ve got the psychological safety of speaking up. And being denied all of those can, for some people, be traumatic.
Ashley Litzenberger:
Yeah. There’s a really interesting story about a major software company in the 2010s, 2015s, when the economy was booming again, and they were growing, doubling in size every year. And their engineering team, they needed to find a way to keep people in seat. And so one of the experiments that the team ran was that they gave teams the opportunity to opt to leave their pod and go to a different pod. You could apply to go and move from, I don’t know, your API team to whatever module another team was working on. And what they found was that teams would totally blow up if the work was not interesting or if the work was not appreciated or if there was a toxic member on the team, you would see teams disintegrate and those issues, those problems would raise to the surface.
And so that brings me to my next question. You’ve talked about the fact that if you remove an employee’s voice or you allow toxic presences to stay in the workplace, you’re going to see that impact. But what can HR leaders do from a systemic perspective to shift the culture to be more trauma-informed and more supported, to create space for managers to be better advocates or supports for their teammates, and then for individual employees to become more of a self-advocate? Because the reality is even though it is the most difficult thing to do, often trauma or often challenges in the workplace aren’t discovered unless someone self-advocates for themself. And so how do you lower the barrier for them to be able to start that conversation?
Dorothy Dalton:
Well, I think the pressure is on the manager. And I mean, one of the themes of this conference is that all of these technologies that we’re talking about is supposed to, in theory, release managers to spend more time on the human elements of their business. So I think it’s about creating speak-up cultures. I mean, I’m a big fan of team charters, so everybody on the team agreeing what’s acceptable, what they will tolerate, how you’re going to hold people accountable if someone breaks those protocols. It means advocating for each other, not just self-advocating, but creating a space where people can genuinely speak up. And we’re just starting to see that. And then if the HR people are managing the areas that score most highly on employee engagement, that is a really good way of measuring it. And that also is another AI or artificial intelligence tool that they can use.
Ashley Litzenberger:
And then one last question. We’ve been talking a little bit about trauma in the workplace, but traumas happen outside the workplace and they do bleed into your work life. If you are not supported and you don’t feel safe at home or you don’t feel like you’re in a good place in your regular life, you’ll bring that into work and you’ll be more distracted and you might also have a negative impact on your co-workers depending on what your stress or what your trauma response is. If it’s fight, flight, freeze, you might not deliver something, you might snap at an employee. And in a world where we’re starting to see more natural disasters, we’re starting to see more issues, or we’re starting to see more events that could trigger previous traumas or could really deeply impact someone in their private life that they bring into the workplace.
How should HR teams be thinking about supporting their employees based on what’s happening around the world? There was recently a large hurricane in Florida, but there’s also been a really public and horrific trial around personal violation of a woman here in France. And so when we think about these different things happening, how do HR teams help equip managers or think about how they should respond as a corporation to some of these things that are happening?
Dorothy Dalton:
I think it’s around sensitivity and empathy and to start to train managers more on soft skills and emotional intelligence and things that matter to make sure that people quite often, there’s a Belgian psychologist called Esther Perel who was the keynote speaker here a few years ago, and she said, “People are hired for hard skills but fired for soft skills.” And that’s exactly what we need to do. So we need to develop soft skills. We need to make sure that channels are open, that people can talk to their managers. If they don’t feel comfortable talking to their managers, they should have a confidential reporting system. And that’s something that AI could do is that people could chat, a chat bot, and they could flag it up. But it’s really important, a lot of these technologies need to be managed by people. So there’s no point having all this tech if nobody is running it or the person running it does not have those soft skills.
Ashley Litzenberger:
That’s really interesting. And then as our listeners who are in the HR space are thinking about it, where can they go to learn more about what it means to be trauma-informed and how to look for trauma in the workplace, or what kinds of things they can do to start getting ahead or start spotting some signs that they might have an issue or they might have a systemic issue within their own workplace?
Dorothy Dalton:
I mean, there’s quite a lot of content out there. They can start by coming to my website because I’ve written a lot on it. So that’s www.3plusinternational.com. So this year, since I’ve become heavily involved, I started to do a lot around that. And I think certainly to study the neuroscience, to become, if you like, “brain-informed,” to understand that not everybody responds in the same way to different stressors. And things that we think as being admirable qualities like “go,” sometimes that comes from a place of fear, too. So it’s about just keeping an open mind, upskilling yourself, learning, and make it a continuous process.
Ashley Litzenberger:
Well, Dorothy, thank you so much for joining us today. This was a fabulous-
Dorothy Dalton:
No, thank you. It’s my pleasure.
Ashley Litzenberger:
Yep. Wonderful.
Dorothy Dalton:
Thanks.
Ashley Litzenberger:
As we wrap up today’s conversation with Dorothy, let’s think about how we can bring some of these important ideas into our own workplaces. First, focus on creating psychological safety. Dorothy reminded us how critical it is for employees to feel safe enough to speak up and share their concerns without fear of backlash. It all starts with building trust and encouraging open and honest conversations.
Second, adopt a trauma-informed approach. Everyone’s experiences and responses are different and as leaders, we need to recognize that. Providing managers with the tools and emotional intelligence to identify and respond to stress or burnout with empathy can make all the difference.
Finally, take another look at your company values. Dorothy made a great point about the disconnect between what companies say and what they actually do. Closing this gap is key to building a culture where people feel supported and valued. These steps aren’t just about addressing challenges, they’re about creating workplaces where people can truly thrive.
Be sure to stay tuned for our next episode of the People Fundamentals podcast. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Music. And if you like what you hear, share it with your friends and colleagues. We’ll see you again soon.
